


The Indomitable Detective

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: Alternate Universe, Detectives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8970568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Following their stranding in the London of the three Darling children, Hook and Smee are forced to approach a rather difficult occupation to piracy.





	

James Hook comes awake with a sharp gasp that drags painfully at his lungs and throat. He grabs at the sheet beneath him, nearly tearing the smooth, golden fabric in his grasp as he sits abruptly up, and he looks wildly around the room, disoriented. His throat is thickly laden, his chest is aching, and he feels greasy and unwashed.

“Smee?” he demands, but his voice is lacking its usual strength; he feels himself parched, and the word cracks in the middle, coming out as a pitchy wheeze.

“Captain,” Smee says, and Hook seems him now: he’d been slumped in an armchair dragged into Hook’s bedroom from his office, and now he sits up, meeting Hook’s gaze. Smee seems very thin and overwrought, dark circles under his eyes and red marks edged into the skin from having fallen asleep with his glasses pressed against the bridge of his nose. As soon as Hook’s eyes fall onto him, Smee is moving, bringing a glass filled with water to Hook, and barely a few moments later a plate of light crackers and cheese.

Hook pushes the plate away, and he drinks heavily from the glass, leaning on his right forearm and looking slowly around the room. It isn’t neat as it ought be; there are clothes scattered where they oughtn’t be, the curtains aren’t properly hanging from the rails, and Hook sees plates and glasses stacked haphazardly about his bedroom table.

Hook squints.

“Smee, what has been wrong with me?”

“Oh, something horrible, Captain! I came onto the ship after getting carrots and that from the market, and I says, “Where’s himself?”, and-”

“Smee,” Hook says, hoarsely. He cannot tell if the damage to his throat, on top of the illness, is from disuse or overuse. “You are permitted ten words.” Smee stares at him, shocked into silence, and while he collects his chosen vocabulary, he goes for a jug, pouring Hook another glass of water and settling once more on the edge of Hook’s bed. As Hook sips, more leisurely now, at his glass, Smee sits very still, his brow furrowed deeply.

“Three weeks ago. You- Sick. Fever. Also some crew.” Smee squints even harder, and Hook imagines the man must be in some pain. “Insensible.” Hook arches an eyebrow at the last word, as it’s one rather outside of Smee’s usual sphere of vocabulary.

“Thank you,” Hook says, and he pulls himself out of bed.

Immediately, he stumbles, his knees buckling under his own weight, and he sits on the edge of the bed, taking in slow, measured breaths as the room spins dizzily about him. With an air of a kicked dog that is only skin deep (Smee has been with Hook too long to be truly hurt by anything he says, by now), Smee pushes the plate of biscuits and cheese towards him.

“I’ve a suit pressed ready for you, sir,” Smee says, moving across the room and taking from the armoire a high-collared white shirt, a royal blue jacket and a slightly darker overcoat with silver brocade: Smee is an utter idiot when it comes to the combination of Hook’s various garments, but Hook knows for a fact he keeps a journal of suitable pairings, and while Hook has not worn this specific combination before, he would be the first to concede that Smee has worked very hard to get it correct.

“Have you been ill yourself, Smee?”

“No, sir, only a sniffle here and there, sir,” Smee responds, as if he believes he can truly lie. Hook measures this answer to mean somewhere between “should be bedridden” and “mild agony”, and he nods his head slowly to ensure the liquids in his inner ear remain primarily still.

“I remember having a mild cold,” Hook says, holding tightly to the one edge of the bed in order to keep himself still and steady. “I remember having a mild cold, and returning here the Friday evening, feeling dizzy…”

“You were delirious, Captain,” Smee says softly. “You were sicker and sicker, barely ate or anything.” After a short pause, Hook stands, allowing Smee to assist in putting on the strap over his injured arm, and then he begins to dress.

The _Jolly Roger_ had settled in a port some way down the Thames from London, and although it had been amidst fanfare (Hook must admit even to himself that ships simply aren’t permitted the glory they were in past years), there had been no true problem. Faced with such _modern_ young sailors, Smee had delightedly spun some tale of pageantry, and the crew had begun to plan a specific strategy.

In recent months, Neverland had become a place of the most _overwhelming_ boredom, with Pan and his boys keeping out of Hook’s sights and even out of those of the crew; it had been Jukes that had suggested, somewhat woefully, that if only that Wendy were present, it might be possible to draw Pan from his isolation.

Much to Hook’s obscene annoyance, it had struck him as a rather excellent idea.

Sailing from Neverland is not and has never been a difficult venture – it is sailing back that becomes an issue, but only if one strays away for too long. The magic of Neverland is so that when one is in Neverland, it is barely possible to recall details of life abroad, but when one is outside, one’s memory of both sides of the sea is quite clear, once one is above a certain age.

The only thing one might forget is the way back, and already Hook can’t recall which stars he ought sail by, or what currents he ought follow.

“Smee,” Hook says in a very quiet but perfectly enunciated tone as he slips on his jacket over his shirt, “Are all of the men still here, on the _Jolly Roger_?”

“Yes, sir,” Smee says. His voice quavers. “Captain- do you…?”

“No, Smee,” Hook says. “I don’t recall the way back.” Adjusting the wrist of his strap, he holds out his hand, and when Smee passes his hook to him he clicks and fastens it into place, thus beginning to button up his coat. Many years previously, Smee might have tactlessly attempted to compliment Hook’s speed in one-handedly managing his wardrobe, but thankfully he has learned _some_ elements of tact over the years by pure osmosis.

“Captain, you’re- without me trying to say badly, sir, you’re not fit to be out of bed.”

“With me out of bed, Smee, the men will follow suit; what morale can one expect of a ship’s crew when their captain is yet abed?” Smee presses his lips together, preventing himself from speaking further, and he reaches out to fold Hook’s handkerchief into his breast pocket. “Chin high, Smee, shoulders back. Good form.”

Smee follows closely when Hook sweeps from the room and out onto the deck.

 ---

“I got the job, Captain!” Noodler all but _skips_ into the street, and Hook gives him a wan smile, taking a half-step back and allowing Smee to put his hand on Noodler’s chest before the man can touch _Hook_. With the man’s hands on backwards, it is no especial surprise that his brain is backwards too, but there is only so much simplicity Hook will accept from a man before he snaps, and it is well-advised of Smee to stand between them.

“Very good, Noodler,” the sailor gives a nod of his head, and then gives Hook a backwards salute saying an excitable goodbye and rushing down the street in the opposite direction.

Noodler is the last of the crew to find employment, and now it is merely Smee and Hook who remain without lodgings or further employment.

It had been Noodler who had been hit hardest by whatever terrible influenza the crew had fallen to upon their arrival in the London port. According to Tennyson, the ship’s doctor (their best carpenter, in fact), it was likely to do with the heavy London air, so different to that of Neverland’s own, but the whys were irrelevant.

They had been in Neverland far too long, and ever the fatalist, Hook had not allowed for any of them to brood any longer upon the ship. He had taken them out in small groups into the bustling city about the port and then further up river into London town, encouraging them into carpenter’s shops or shipyards, into kitchens, cemeteries, tailors and butchers. Men from the crew of the _Jolly Roger_ are cast about the city like marbles on a rug, just as they ought be: it had been Hook’s responsibility to care for them, after all, having stranded them thus.

 _Three months_ he and Smee have been stranded in a London they do not know.

Hook has always enjoyed the occasional wander from the crystalline waters of the Neverland sea, picking up new books, fleeting past the changing seasons and eras of the world outside, but he has not been away from Neverland for this long in almost three hundred years.

He is not a man of this world, with its _submarines_ and _engines_ , as outlined in Monsieur Verne’s recent stories, and he feels intensely out of place. Hook has never cared to be out of place before, but here, in the warming spring air of London, it almost makes him _feel_.

“Captain,” Smee says quietly, and Hook glances at him. With gold and jewellery hoarded upon the ship, Hook has been able to create a comfortable launching pad for his crew to find for themselves lodgings and jobs, but for Smee, who had refused to search for either if it meant leaving Hook’s side, the allowance of funds Hook had insisted he take had been spent almost entirely on his wardrobe.

With Hook’s _extensive_ advice and adjustment, the other man presents himself in a fashion almost acceptable in polite society – though not quite. For all his virtues, after all, Smee is still an Irishman, and some things cannot be forgiven.

“Yes, Smee?”

“That’s the last of them, Captain,” Smee says. He has a habit of stating the obvious when anxious: unfortunately, Smee is anxious approximately eighty five percent of the time. He slips his hands into the pockets of his deep grey goat, and he huddles in it despite the pleasant, spring air. Hook moves through the streets of London with confidence, knowing that crowds will part before his overwhelming sense of presence, and when Smee walks beside him, he benefits from the same privilege.

“Yes…” Hook prompts idly. From his pocket, he draws a silver cigarette case, and when he draws one of the tightly rolled cylinders out, he offers Smee the case. Smee politely mumbles a refusal, and Hook accepts this, dropping the case back into his coat and lighting the cigarette with a flourish. Of all the things he can accept, cigarettes are one of them (though he prefers a cigar), and he cannot deny the increased efficacy of matches these days.

“What are we to do then, sir? What we’ve got will keep us happy for a fair while, sir, and the _Roger_ is-“

“Smee,” Hook says in his quietest, most delicate voice. He hears Smee gulp, “As I have told you before, we will _not_ be remaining upon the _Jolly Roger_. We will procure an office and lodgings, in that order.” He sucks in as much of the cigarette’s sweet, sweet poison as he can in one breath, closing his eyes momentarily, and he savours its sting in his mouth before he blows it out. “I’ve done the accounts on the _Jolly Roger_ for the past several _centuries_ , and I was an accountant before I became a pirate. Men and eras change, Smee, but the reality of income and outcome do not.”

“S’not right, sir,” Smee mumbles. “You’re a _captain_ , sir, you shouldn’t-”

“What is your suggested alternative, Smee?” Hook asks, archly. Smee’s only response is a low sigh.

Away from the rigour of life upon the _Jolly Roger_ , Hook has relaxed marginally in Smee’s presence, and without feeling such a need to display with his entire person the chain of command upon ship, Smee has lapsed into speaking to Hook as if they are equals. The novelty of the situation, of Smee’s confidence, delights Hook, and he enjoys it far too much to correct the behaviour.

“And what about you? Will you not return to carpentry?” Smee is an excellent whittler, an excellent carpenter, a good tailor despite his lacking fashion sense – Hook is fairly certain Smee could be set to any craft at all and master it within a month, barring speechcraft.

“No, sir,” Smee says firmly. “Shan’t be leaving your side, sir. Shan’t never.”

“ _Shall_ never is enough,” Hook corrects, waving a ringed hand vaguely, sending cigarette smoke billowing in a small, graceful circle beside his head. “Not _shall not never_.” Smee shrugs.

“What’s that, sir?” Hook glances to Smee, and then looks forwards again. The street before them, wide enough to allow the passage of a one-horse cart, is blocked with people – two or three dozen are crowded in the corridor created by the buildings towering at each edge of the street, and Hook frowns deeply.

“Let us see,” he replies, and he quickens his pace by a fraction. The crowd parts before Hook’s air of authority like the seas before Moses, but Hook pays them no need, stepping into the centre of them. A young man lies spread-eagled on the ground, his knee unnaturally twisted, and Hook crouches beside him, passing his cigarette to Smee before placing two fingers upon the young man’s neck.

He is yet warm, but there’s no pulse at all, and when Hook puts his thumb on the young man’s chin and opens his mouth slightly, dark blood dribbles from between his lips and between the cobblestones. Blood already marrs the young man’s collar, soaked into the dirty fabric, and Hook arches an eyebrow, standing straight.

“Well, there’s no need for any of you to dally,” Hook says, unamused at the spectacle of the event. It is one thing to be proud of damage done, and to admire a corpse you have laid upon the ground with your own passion and skill, but these Londoners hover for the sensationalism of the event, and _that_ is the epitome of bad form. “The boy is dead, and I would wager he’s an orphan or a street urchin, else one of you might have already screamed murder into the alley rather than staring at him like a penny attraction.”

This phrasing is enough to deter perhaps a third of the corpse’s audience, and Hook leans to Smee, murmuring for him to fetch a member of the constabulary – _though not, Smee, before returning my cigarette, thank you._

Holding the butt of the cigarette in his mouth, Hook lets his black coat slide from his shoulders, and he gently covers the young man’s body – he’s hardly very old, and no doubt with all of his milk teeth. The thought reminds Hook, instantly, of Pan, and he resists the urge to kick the body.

“You’ve only one hand!” says the voice of a similarly young man.

“Have I indeed?” Hook says dryly, “I’d never noticed.” He turns to examine the boy who’d spoken. He’s blond and tall for his age, taller than the two boys either side of him, and he has eyes as green as conifers, his chapped lips parted in obvious curiosity as he stares at Hook’s hook. The boy on his left has much the same interest, but the boy on the right, the smallest one with mousy brown hair and grey eyes, has his gaze focused intently on the dead urchin.

Hook’s eyes flit over the boy, and he knows what has happened before he has finished enjoying the last of his cigarette.

Two policemen come down the street in orderly pursuit of Smee, and before the young urchins can flee, Hook grabs the mousy boy by the collar, dragging him closer.

“Oi, now!” yells the blond, but Hook ignores him, forcing the mousy boy to meet his gaze.

“Your name?”

“Harold, sir, it’s Harold, please let me go-”

“Might I see the knife in your pocket, Harold?” Hook requests, politely. The boy begins to kick and struggle in Hook’s grip like a kitten in a drowning sack, and Hook lifts him just slightly off the ground to prevent his gaining any traction upon the floor. “ _Please_?”

“Let me go! You big old bastard, you fucking-”

“Now, _now_ , young man,” Hook murmurs. “Language. And in front of the constabulary, no less. You’ve already killed a man – must you add public indecency to your list of charges?”

“How do you know ‘e killed ‘im?” demands the shrill voice of a middle-aged woman in an ugly shawl, and Hook glances at her uncaringly.

“The blood on the cuff of his sleeve – spots of it, and a little bit just below his eye. Whether it was part of rough play or some more sinister plot, I don’t really care, but- Smee, would you reach into one of this urchin’s pockets and remove the knife?”

“Aye, Captain,” Smee says, and he dips his hands into the boy’s coat pockets before finding the knife tucked into his ill-fitting waist coat, bloodied at the tip and having smudged its bounty on the boy’s clothes. “Here it is, sir!”

“Mmm,” Hook hums, and he drops the boy – Harold – to the ground, pushing him into one of the policeman with the back of his hook. The two remaining street urchins are staring, stunned, at their fellow, and Hook cannot help but be _mildly_ amused.

“Are you a detective!?” demands the woman, and Hook glances at her, unimpressed.

“Pardon, Madam?” he asks icily, but before he can continue with a note that any _idiot_ might see blood upon an urchin’s sleeve, Smee interrupts him.

“ _Yes_ , Madam!” Smee says, clapping his hands together and looking around at the crowd still lingering. “The Captain is indeed a detective, a private detective new to London for hire-”

“ _What_?”

“His name is Captain James Hadrian Hook, Ma’am, and we’ll be establishin’ offices hereabouts soon enough.” Hook reels, turning on his heel towards Smee and readying some threat or other, but before he can smack his boatswain upside the head, one of the policemen requests a statement. It takes an _irritating_ amount of time to explain to the younger man of the happenings as his colleague takes the murderous urchin elsewhere for safekeeping, but Hook finds that the young man looks at him with the greatest respect on his features.

“Are you really a private detective, sir?” the young policeman asks, and Hook glances at him. They are walking together to the police station, allowing Smee to carry the body of the dead urchin, and Hook _will_ be retrieving his coat.

“Why not?” Hook says breezily, and he glares at the back of Smee’s head.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is heavily inspired and made use of on my [.](http://raconteurofrepute.tumblr.com/)


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